


Operation: Replay

by SapphireSiren



Series: Illumination [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Adventure, Canon - Manga, Drama, Eventual Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Seto Kaiba, Gen, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-10 21:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10448139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireSiren/pseuds/SapphireSiren
Summary: When Jounouchi wanted to be champion, he hadn't expected it to go like this. He expected the crowd to roar in thunderous screaming as he took in sponsorships and interviews backstage.He hadn't expected to gain a rival willing to move heaven and earth to destroy him, but could he really expect anything else?





	1. Reignite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jounouchi accidentally a whole Kaiba.

Kaiba stepped into the arena, briefcase in hand, and took his reserved seat in the front row. He glanced up at the tournament bracket board, glancing at only the shapes the tree took.

_So they’ve just finished the finals. I made it just in time._

Just as the thought jumped into his brain, the announcer made a call for him.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, your exhibition duel featuring our very own Kaiba Seto will be soon underway!”

Kaiba stood from his seat and stepped down the last few steps to the arena floor as the crowd cheered. He smirked and held his head high, drifting over to the announcer’s side.

“A big welcome to Kaiba-san for coming out all this way!” After much of the roar died down, the announcer continued. “And let’s give a welcome to our new regional champion – Jounouchi Katsuya!”

Kaiba’s head almost snapped clean off as he turned to look at where, sure enough, Jounouchi pranced out onto the stage, ear-to-ear grins and waves at the crowd. He took the announcer’s other side, giving a single nod to Kaiba.

Before the crowd roars died down, Kaiba managed a snip away from the microphone.

“The competition must have been the absolute dregs of society this year. How exactly _did_ it feel to beat a handful of preschoolers?”

“Y’know what, Kaiba? I’m on too much of a high right now. Just wait until I kick your sorry ass right back to your office – the U.S. branch.”

“Big words for a little man. Let’s see how you can handle the new system, if there’s even a brain up there to connect it to.”

The announcer stepped back once he was through explaining the rules of the duel to hand the microphone over to Kaiba. Jounouchi watched as, even without having listened to the announcer prior, without skipping a beat, Kaiba smoothly transitioned into bragging about his new Duel Links dueling system.

He clipped it onto his arm and put the headpiece behind his ear. The arm apparatus shone black and sophisticated, and the holographic projector in the middle glowed blue. Jounouchi glimpsed into the briefcase, biting back a rather unmanly squeal at the Duel Links disc – could he even call it a disc anymore? – sitting in wait for him. They had to be customizable, he thought, since the one laying there was a silvery black, lighter than the one Kaiba wore, fitted with a blood red gem. (He didn’t dwell on how Kaiba knew his favorite colors so well.)

He was jolted out of his reverie when Kaiba stepped over with the system, showing exactly how to attach it by using Jounouchi as a dummy. Jounouchi chose to ignore every time Kaiba brushed up against him, blaming the vibrating energy in his body on the high of becoming the newest champion. Once he was fitted, he flexed his left arm and hand.

“Hey, not bad. This is really comfortable.”

Only Kaiba would look offended at a _compliment_.

Away from the mic, he spat, “As if I would design a product to be otherwise.”

Before Jounouchi could process this new level of asshole-ry, Kaiba took the mic from the announcer again.

“Now is the time! Commence our duel!”

The crowd went ballistic over Kaiba’s words, and Jounouchi swallowed the lump back in his throat. Now wasn’t the time to be nervous. Sure, he currently had a new system on his arm that he’d never so much as seen up close, he was up against the world champion (only because Yuugi had refused the title, much to Kaiba’s vexation), and he was dueling in front of a completely enraptured audience. This was nothing.

The two of them took their spots on opposite ends of the arena. His Duel Links system glowed red up his arm, and he could feel a slight buzz from his headband like a fly’s wings against his scalp. As soon as he felt it, it was gone. He was connected.

The screens popped up in front of him, and that was the last he felt of his nervousness. For all of Kaiba’s pompous jackass self, he was the cream of the crop when it came to holographic technology. The new technology excited him, especially considering he didn’t even own a computer.

He took in a breath, switching his brain from the excitement of the tech over to the seriousness of the duel. For all of Kaiba’s back-handed insults, Jounouchi could see that his eyes were deathly serious. Jounouchi was not going to be taken lightly. Both of them drew five cards, popping up as holograms in front of their faces.

“DUEL!” they both shouted.

Nearly forty minutes later, Jounouchi’s beefed-up Red Eyes Black Dragon lowered its head and closed its mouth after its final attack. Kaiba’s Blue Eyes disintegrated into dust. The systems both turned off, and one could hear a pin drop from the back row of the arena. Whereas the crowd had been roaring before at every new summon – especially at Kaiba’s three Blue Eyes – they sat in utter silence now.

Kaiba fell to his knees, holographic smoke rolling off his body as the Life Point counter dropped to zero. He stared ahead at nothing. Had… Had he just had a bad draw? No, his deck was above that amateurish trope. Did he not take the duel seriously? Laughable. Every duel demanded his utmost attention. Humiliating Jounouchi with everything that he had was a great stress reliever, and he wouldn’t have squandered the chance.

 _How… How could I lose to_ him?!

Everyone in the arena seemed to be thinking the same thing, including Jounouchi. No one moved. No one breathed.

Jounouchi finally broke everything and stepped slowly over to Kaiba. He stopped right in front of him and held out his hand.

“Hey… Thanks for the duel.”

That flicked a light switch in Kaiba, and his gaze snapped up to his eyes. Jounouchi stopped breathing as he was hit with the full force of Kaiba’s rage. He’d seen those blue eyes inflamed with venomous, never-ending revenge only once before.

When they had been turned against Atem.

How had Atem stood it? How had he not been consumed by something so dark and vengeful? Maybe it helped that he had known and had navigated the darkness better than even Kaiba had. But Jounouchi didn’t know darkness. He’d been through dark times, lost his way, but he had never known true darkness like Kaiba and the Pharaoh had.

Now this darkness threatened to swallow him up whole and made his chest turn to ice.

Kaiba stood up, never taking his eyes off the man in front of him. And just like that, the flame tempered into a steely resolve, and he slowly went to grip Jounouchi’s hand. The crowd began to murmur again, and life was restored to the arena.

“… Good game, Jounouchi.” The words had no warmth in them at all. He was keeping up decorum.

Kaiba walked past him without another breath in his direction. Jounouchi stayed frozen for another moment before forcing himself to speak through the pain in his chest.

“Wait. I have to give this back.”

Kaiba stopped for only a moment. “Keep it. You’ll be _needing_ it.” The word left his lips like a poisoned dart.

Jounouchi could hardly celebrate finally obtaining the newest dueling system when he’d just been threatened with it. He stood numb as the announcer threw up his arm and declared him the winner. He watched as Kaiba took his briefcase and left, eyes following Kaiba even when Jounouchi's fans began to swarm around and ask for autographs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is a Sailor Moon shout-out. Lol. I don't usually post fanfiction that often, so I hope this is okay. I hope to keep up with this, too. I love the idea of Jounouchi finally becoming noticed as a worthy adversary in Kaiba's eyes, and what that would actually mean for him. Since this is also post-DSoD, it follows the manga plot and characterizations more closely. (I think DSoD was supposed to be post-manga, not post-anime, but I could be wrong.) ~~I don't have much planned out for this, so I'm kind of taking it where it leads me.~~
> 
> EDIT: I now have a plot, and plan on this being about 10 chapters and somewhere around 12K-15K words. I've also changed the tags to reflect this direction. Sorry for those who came for the pairing. This fic is entirely going to be gen. Kaiba has issues to work through before he considers actual human contact, much less a romance. Anyway, I hope y'all still enjoy this!


	2. Review

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jounouchi and Yuugi have a slightly panicked heart-to-heart.

Jounouchi pedaled his bike as fast as he could to the Kame Game Shop, his Duel Links wrapped up carefully in a thick blanket in the basket. He ignored all the people who yelled at him as he barely missed bowling them over. He stopped in front of the game store, kicked his kickstand, grabbed the dueling system in his arms like a baby, and ran through the door like it wasn’t even there.

“Yuugi!” he shouted.

Sugoroku switched from restocking cards to clutching his chest, head snapping up to stare at Jounouchi. “J-Jounouchi! Don’t give an old man a heart attack!”

“Sorry! Is Yuugi here?”

“I’m right here,” Yuugi announced, coming in from the back. His expression was unreadable. He already knew. “Jounouchi-kun, let’s go upstairs.”

The two of them rushed upstairs, leaving Sugoroku to sigh heavily and turn back to restocking cards out of brown shipping boxes.

Once upstairs, Jounouchi laid out the Duel Links like a sleeping puppy on Yuugi’s bed, then flopped down next to it, throwing his arm over his eyes.

“Yuugi. Yuugi, I’m so _fucked_.”

Yuugi sat in his chair beside his desk, crossing one leg over the other. Jounouchi usually refrained from swearing too badly in his presence, but this was unprecedented.

“Maybe it’s not so bad.”

Jounouchi lowered his arm to stare at him with haunted eyes.

“Yuugi. Kaiba prepared an excavation in Egypt, arranged an entire tournament, and nearly destroyed the damn world to duel the Pharaoh again. Not to mention all the other things he did! And did you hear? It’s even rumored he somehow built some dimension-traveling device! Probably to go back in time or go to the land of the dead or whatever! Just to beat the Pharaoh. Yuugi, _he invented time travel to win a card game_.”

Yuugi breathed out a sigh. “If nothing else, Kaiba-kun’s persistent.”

Persistent was putting it mildly. No one had never scared him like this. Hirutani had been a thug. He put his faith in Yuugi taking down Pegasus, Malik, and Bakura. But Kaiba? Kaiba had all the power to torture him for the rest of his life, and neither of them had any power to do a thing.

“How did you bear it? He looked like a madman, like… like a demon. You’re his rival, not me!”

“No, Jounouchi-kun. I never was.”

Jounouchi took a good look at Yuugi, who was biting his lip. Yuugi looked lost, much like he had in the first few months after Atem had left. Jounouchi knew, even though he didn’t particularly like Kaiba, that Yuugi had admired Kaiba. But Kaiba had only ever had eyes for the Pharaoh and had refused Yuugi’s attempts at friendship.

Thank whoever that Yuugi was just as stubborn about calling Kaiba a friend.

Jounouchi sat up. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Yuugi.”

“It was always difficult to bear. Atem was so graceful about it, but he was a Pharaoh. I was just some kid. Atem and I had our bond, and Atem had a bond with Kaiba-kun. I could never reach him the way he did. Maybe you can.”

Jounouchi pondered his words for a moment, then something clicked into place. “Wait. Are you… Are you jealous?”

“What?!” Yuugi snapped his head up, eyes wide and mouth open, but he stared at the wall. “J-Jealous?”

“Yeah. It makes sense. You wanted to be Kaiba’s rival like Atem was. Because… you wanted to be Atem. And now you won’t look at me.”

Yuugi closed his mouth, then forced his eyes to Jounouchi’s. “… Yeah. I guess I am. I’m sorry. Kaiba always looked at you, too, you know. Even if it was just to make some snide comment.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m pretty sure Kaiba could just shoot some nukes at my apartment.”

Yuugi snickered, and Jounouchi breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t think he has launch codes.”

“He probably has his own line of KaibaCorp weaponry! He doesn’t need the government!”

“Jounouchi-kun, he dismantled that part of KaibaCorp.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot it used to be a weapons company.” Jounouchi scratched his head. “See? You remember more about him than I do. And besides… while Atem might have been his rival, you’ve been the only one to convince him to be a good guy. Atem couldn’t do that. That was all you, Yuugi.”

Yuugi paused for a moment, then flashed a smile. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Sorry I got upset.”

“Don’t apologize. I was careless, too.” Jounouchi flopped back onto the bed and groaned. “And anyway, how the hell am I going to fix this?”

Yuugi hummed and tapped his bottom lip. “He needs to let go of the idea that he has to be number one. But Kaiba-kun is…”

“—Really stubborn, yeah. Maybe I could convince him that it didn’t count since it was an exhibition match?”

“Good luck with that one. Kaiba-kun doesn’t do ‘unofficial.’”

Jounouchi rolled over onto his side. “Yeah, you’re right…”

Yuugi stood up and walked over to the bed. “How about we deal with this later? I mean, you’re now the regional champion! Congratulations! I believed in you.”

Jounouchi looked up at Yuugi’s eyes shining with pride, and the worries of being Kaiba’s new rival melted away for the moment. He got up off the bed, reached out, and hugged him. “Aw, thanks, Yuugi!”

Yuugi laughed and hugged him back. After letting go, he unwrapped the Duel Links, eyes going wide with wonder. “Oh, wow. This really suits you.”

“Yeah. I guess he was going with the ‘Red Eyes’ color theme. Kinda weird how it seemed like he actually cared.” Jounouchi admired the shining metal and glass. It was finally all his, and custom.

“I think he does, deep down.” Yuugi brushed a finger over the projector gem. “You two have a lot in common. Besides, if you’re going with clichés, it doesn’t make much sense to have a magician against a dragon. Your dragons are opposites: the Blue Eyes White Dragon and the Red Eyes Black Dragon.”

“H-Hey, this isn’t some shounen manga!”

The two of them laughed and chatted about the tournament duels well into the evening. Jounouchi left in high spirits, riding his bike back into his neighborhood. His father would be happy to hear about the win, as well as the prize money. If he kept winning tournaments like this, they would be able to move into a better neighborhood. Despite this new “rival” complication, he could finally see that light at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apologies again for the misleading tags. There will be KaiJou, but it's going to be a long while. In case you missed the edited notes last chapter, I'm aiming for a 3-part series where part 3 will be KaiJou. This fic will be purely gen and just a "what if" adventure based off the canon, which can be read as a standalone. I'm feeling really inspired, so I want to keep this going as long as I can! I've now made this fic public, but comments will still be moderated. As always, kudos and comments are much appreciated! Thank you all. ♥


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